Radar | Dubman and Streylock

York Nuclear Bunker

Posted on September 4, 2016 by dubmanandstreylock

On a family pilgrimage trip to Yorkshire to see the wonderful scenic sights it would’ve of been silly to miss an opportunity to visit York’s Nuclear Bunker. So I took my two children along for some Cold War history. Worked out well to be honest Nyah is studying that era at school and Kofi related to all the information via his Xbox game Fallout 4. All boxes ticked……

Quote info from Wikipedia

The York Cold War Bunker is a two-storey semi-subterranean Cold War bunker in the Holgate area of York, England, built in 1961 to monitor nuclear explosions and fallout in Yorkshire in the event of nuclear war.

One of about 30 around the United Kingdom, the building was used throughout its operational existence as the regional headquarters and control centre for the Royal Observer Corps’s No. 20 Group YORK between 1961 and 1991. It is an English Heritage Scheduled Monument and was opened in 2006 by English Heritage as a tourist attraction.

You get about an hour of a guided tour with just amount enough time to fire a few photos off. There’s a short film with information and questions at the beginning to get you started. Worth picking up the guidebook for only a few pounds as a souvenir.

Please see the links at the bottom for all information on the bunker.

On looking for some info I came across a short music film from an event of music by the original lead singer of the band Ultravox John Foxx and Benge. Put on by creative group Vespertine – Seeing York Through New Eyes.
Would of loved to have been there for that. Experimental electronic music in a perfect setting.

Loads more pictures on my Flickr

Hope you enjoyed the pictures
All the best
Mike Dubman

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Links
Wikipedia

English Heritage

Subbrit

Vespertine – Seeing York Through New Eyes

St Catherines Hill Dorset

Posted on April 3, 2016 by dubmanandstreylock

Mysterious little place stuck at the top of a wooded hill in the borough of Christchurch. St Catherines Hill is filled with history from the Bronze Age right through to both World Wars and even had a Royal Observer Corps post during the Cold War. It also features two building that look like scene sets from the US series Lost, one a dome shape the other like a reinforced wall compound. I believe these are water reservoirs but you can let your imagination have some fun. Plus you have a gun club, telecommunication masts and a quarry amongst the healthland of rare flora and fauna filled with abundance of protected wildlife.
See the links below for all the details about the place. It’s an exciting place to visit.

Buildings in the woods

Telecommunication

Rave

Gun Club

Hope you fun on your mission if you go.
All the best

Dubman And Streylock

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Links
Wikipedia
Friends of St Catherine’s Hill
The Mystery Of St Catherine’s Hill

Fort Southwick UGHQ – Portsdown Tunnels

Posted on March 19, 2016 by dubmanandstreylock

This was a very exciting day out around 2011 with Streylock and my little brother Dan. Made possible by a lovely guy who runs the UCAP Airsoft down there. He let us have free rein of the place and what an incredible place it is. The classic kids in a candy store, grinning from ear to ear. Its a real rabbit run of around 110 rooms all connecting up. Dark and spooky, brimming full of history. Bits of twisted metal and corrugated sheets, to dug out rock with deep chisel marks. A real place of grand wonder. The guys have done a fantastic job of clearing the base out but keeping the inside as much in tact to keep it safe. Take a look at what it looked like when it was being used during WWII here on the Portsdown-Tunnels website.

During the Second World War, Underground Headquarters or UGHQ, the communications “nerve centre” for Operation Overlord, was in a secret network of tunnels excavated between February and December 1942 by 172 Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers 100 ft (30 m) underneath Fort Southwick, well out of reach of any bombs of the era.

Here’s a layout of the floor plan

A little video of us inside the complex. You really could just keep walking around and around as all the rooms join up.
(Look there’s a Spreadzoid aka Streylock getting his camera ready)

Here’s some photos.

What we learned was “Paul Likes Boobs”

Dubman spooking up the place

Streylock “powering up his sonic boom”

She’s gonna blow Captain!

Where the Easter Bunny goes on vacation

The way out

Hope you enjoyed the pictures
Dubman, Streylock and Dan

Useful links
Portsdown Tunnels – A fantastic resource by Bob Hunt
Ucap Airsoft

RAF Ibsley Control Tower

Posted on March 5, 2016 by dubmanandstreylock

Hidden in this quaint village of Ibsley inbetween the towns of Ringwood and Fordingbridge can be found a derelict building with a lot of aviation history.
Built in the early 40’s the airfield was used by both the Royal Air Force and the United Sates Army Air Force during the Second World War until it was closed around 1947.
You can read some info RAF Ibsley on Wikipedia

Now all that remains of the airfield is lots of rubble and foundations dotted around in the woods along side the control tower, which still looks quite majestic even in its sorry state. It sits looking over a quarry lake which is very picturesque.

Hope you like the pictures which where taken in April 2011.
Dubman and Streylock

Like to think when I find his photos there will be me in his shot.

Streylock phoning his lawyer to see if his insurance covers climbing rusty window frames as ladders.

Here is an artists impression of what it looked like by J Chandler and RAF Ibsley AIRFIELD HERITAGE TRUST

Some useful links
Wikipedia
The Trusts Facebook page
The Trusts Website

St Aldhelm’s Head, Chapel and Radar

Posted on December 7, 2015 by dubmanandstreylock

A perfect little trip out to the coast of the Purbecks where you will find a little ridge of a stone cliff with a intriguing hidden history of radar and a delightful Grade 1 listed building, the St Aldhelms Chapel. Which is believed to be at least 13th century. You can read the history of the Chapel at the Isle Of Purbeck website and on Wikipedia.

Centered in the middle of Worth Matravers, Winspit Quarry and Kimmeridge, this is a gem of a place for a walk. Or as we did drive there, not really recommended unless you have a 4×4 or tractor. It’s a pretty crazy bone crunching journey which probably resulted in things falling off my car but it was extremely fun and worth looking on the map for the paths, the word “road” doesn’t really come into it. The views are stunning as you are so high, there is a coastguard station there which has excellent vantage point for spectacular views far out to sea and along the coastline.

There is also a Memorial to the Radar history of St Aldhelm’s Head which was unveiled by radar legend Sir Bernard Lovell. You can read all about the World War 2 radar achievements and researches on the Purbeck Radar Website.

How the radar towers looked

Echoes of the Past – A DVD history of the Purbeck Radar

Hack Green Nuclear Bunker Part 1

Posted on November 9, 2015 by dubmanandstreylock

Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker Museum has to be one of the best and most exciting Cold War exhibits in the UK. It’s totally crammed full of machines of wonder from old computer systems to radar and surveillance equipment, posters, propaganda, uniforms from the time and rooms beautifully set out into themed sets. A lot of work and effort has been lovingly put in to this gem of a museum. It’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere and we had the whole place to ourselves. The owners don’t mind you taking photos. We stayed from opening to closing time. Like kids in a sweet shop, just going “oh my” and “Oooo sweet Jeeessez” in each and every room. Incredible place. If Cold War history is your thing and you haven’t been then I whole heartily recommend you getting up there soon.

From Wiki

The first military use of the area was in World War II, when a Starfish site was established at Hack Green. Its purpose was to confuse Luftwaffe bombers looking for the vital railway junction at Crewe.

A Ground-controlled interception (GCI) radar station was added.

In the 1950s, the site was modernised as part of the ROTOR project. This included the provision of a substantial semi-sunk reinforced concrete bunker or blockhouse (type R6).

The station, officially designated RAF Hack Green, was also known as Mersey Radar. It provided an air traffic control service to military aircraft crossing civil airspace.

The site was abandoned and remained derelict for many years, until the Home Office took it over. They rebuilt the R6 bunker as a Regional Government Headquarters (RGHQs) – one of a network of 17 such sites throughout the UK – designed to enable government to continue in the aftermath of a major nuclear attack on the UK.

The following photos are a bunch which were finished but there are many more to post when I find them. I will do a separate page linked to this one when I do. In the meantime I hope you enjoy these. All the best Dubman and Streylock.

Orford Ness – Streylock’s Photos

Posted on October 31, 2015 by dubmanandstreylock

This was the birth place of Streylock and Dubman. We had started meeting up and having camera nights for a year or so before, taking photos of subways, tunnels and anything that was of interest. Enjoying this so much we went searching for bigger things to photograph and discovered we both had a passion for Cold War history, Derelict Buildings, Jet Aircraft and Space. A real match. The first big “mission,” as we called them, was Orford Ness. An amazing road trip playing dub and techno in the old but trusty Silver Ford Mondeo. Camping in a little apple orchard in a pub garden of The Jolly Sailor in the pouring rain. Waking up knowing that we were going on a massive adventure, which started with getting a boat across to the shingle island to see the most magnificent sights of derelict test sites of the Cold War. We were the only two nutters over there at the time, battling against the elements. Lashing rain at times, bashing heavy winds and the most amazing dark skies. This all added to the ambiance of the area which has an incredible force about it not far removed from the landscape of the 1979 film by director Andrei Tarkovsky Stalker. This was the big one and straight away we knew we wanted more. This is where our close bond of friendship properly started. And that’s when we called ourselves Streylock and Dubman.

This post will feature Streylock’s images and I will upload mine soon with another page.

From Wikipedia
The Atomic Weapons Research Establishment had a base on the site, used for environmental testing. When a laboratory test is conducted to determine the functional performance of a component or system under conditions that simulate the real environment in which the component or system is expected to operate. Many of the buildings from this time remain clearly visible from the quay at Orford, including the distinctive “pagodas”. Whilst it is maintained that no fissile material was tested on the site, the very high explosive initiator charge was present and the buildings were designed to absorb any accidental explosion, allowing gases and other material to vent and dissipate in a directed or contained manner. In the event of a larger accident, the roofs were designed to collapse onto the building, sealing it with a lid of concrete.

In the late 1960s an experimental Anglo-American military over-the-horizon radar known as Cobra Mist was built on the peninsula. It closed in 1973, and in the late 1970s and early 1980s the site and building were re-used for the Orfordness transmitting station. This powerful mediumwave radio station – originally owned and run by the Foreign Office, then the BBC and, after privatization in the 1990s, a series of private companies – was best known for transmitting the BBC World Service in English around the clock to continental Europe on 648 kHz from September 1982 until March 2011. The station has been disused since May 2012.

Orford Ness is now owned by the National Trust and is open to the public under the name “Orford Ness National Nature Reserve”, though access is strictly controlled to protect the fragile habitats and due to a residual danger to the public from the site’s former use by the military. Access is therefore only available by the National Trust ferry from Orford Quay on designated open days.

Streylock

The trailer to Stalker

Chilbolton Observatory

Posted on October 30, 2015 by dubmanandstreylock

This was another of those places that we just had to keep returning too. That incredible massive moving metal dish pointing to the stars in a field of a once used Royal Air Force Airfield.

Located in Stockbridge in Hampshire on the edge of the village of Chilbolton it’s a perfect drive out through the serene countryside. We found this place on a little clue of the area being used to fly Spitfires during WW2. Wondering if any airbase survived we used Google maps to search the area and what a shock when the radar popped on the screen. That was it, the next Streylock and Dubman adventure. Off we set in my trusty old Mondeo and parked up by the gate sitting excitingly looking at the radar drinking flask coffee for half an hour, busy taking in the awesome view, no need to rush this, it was a giant 25m fully steerable antenna.
The area is fenced off but you can get pretty close but we really wanted to get closer to that radar! A few years later our dreams were answered. A photography walk and talk around the whole Observatory and we even got to go inside the beauty, even seeing the tunnel underneath the radar which leads to the control center. Proper amazing. Incredible day out, if they ever do it again get on it. The site also hosts the LOFAR (Low Frequency Array Radio Telescope) which looks more like a set from a 60’s edition of Doctor Who made out of old wire and a few clothes pegs and sheet of tarpaulin but as I understand its a very important piece of kit.

Also see when you turn into the area there a bunch of old nissen huts now being used for a business park. There’s a great piece about the area here at Airshow Present Raf Chilbolton worth a read if your interested in the RAF side of Chilbolton